


The Random Analysis of Susan Pevensie

by orphan_account



Series: The Random Analysis of... [1]
Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-24
Updated: 2020-11-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:55:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27699283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Analyzing Susan Pevensie and the concept of who she is.
Series: The Random Analysis of... [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2025748
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	The Random Analysis of Susan Pevensie

Susan Pevensie is an interesting character, to say the least. She is able to undo her growth during the series, and that might not necessarily a bad thing.

***  
/Part One Age/:

In the books, the ages of the Pevensie children are never directly stated but it is almost unanimously decided by fans that in The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, Peter is fourteen, Susan is twelve, Edmund is ten, and Lucy is eight.

One year later during the events of Prince Caspian, Peter would be fifteen and Susan would be thirteen.

At the beginning of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we get a "Where are they now?" with the Pevensies, and meet their cousin, Eustace Clarence Scrubb. It's been about a year so, Peter is sixteen, Susan is fourteen, Edmund is twelve, and Lucy would be only ten. When trying to figure out the age of Eustace I consulted the images in Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Silver Chair. (I found that to be a safe bet) he appears to be approximately eleven. By the maturity and level-headedness that Jill has, and the fact that she was near Eustace's age she was most likely twelve. These may all seem unimportant to Susan but I am using these to figure out how old everyone was in The Last Battle.

It had been a hot minute since I had read the seventh book in The Chronicles of Narnia so I consulted the fifth chapter, Help Comes To The King, on page fifty-five Jill and Eustace come into Narnia, studying the image you can see that only a year (at most) has passed, as the kids still look young. So due to the pattern that we have been using Susan was only say, sixteen when her family died.

/Part Two The Movies/:

We all knew at some point I'd have to talk about the movies. In the films, significant time seems to pass between visits to Narnia, she appears to be twelve in the first, fourteen or fifteen in the second, and maybe seventeen in the third. One thing I did enjoy about the films was, how much Susan was able to use her bow and arrow as opposed to in the books. In the second movie, Susan had a romantic subplot with Prince/King Caspian. Critics claim the "In the books, Susan and Caspian never spoke!" which is untrue, though no actual dialogue is exchanged between the two we are told that Susan let Caspian keep her horn after he tried to return it to her, since she wouldn't be coming back to Narnia. I wasn't trying to make an argument for either side, I just like proving people wrong.

/Part Three Her Arc/

Susan Pevensie started off the series as a strict, boring, and closed-minded twelve-year-old girl who just wanted everyone to shut up, and ended the series as a less strict, less boring, but even more close-minded, teenage age girl, who knows fact from fiction and only cares about material things. So how did she get there?

When Susan is in Narina she is (High?) Queen Susan the Gentle, a kind, loving, and beautiful queen. She doesn't fight much, though she is an amazing archer. Narnia changes everyone who enters, Susan became softer and more flexible (In the sense that everything isn't as cut and dry as she thought) After her fifteen-year reign as (High?) Queen, she is sent back through the wardrobe and finds herself once again in her twelve-year-old body in the normal world. This messed with all of the kids, Susan adapted to her normal life pretty quickly. At the end of the second book, Aslan said that Susan and her older brother, Peter, had learned everything they could from Narnia and would not be returning.

Earlier I mentioned that, at the beginning of Voyage of the Dawn Treader, we get a "Where are they now?" with the Pevensies. Peter is studying with Professor Diggory Kirk, while Susan is with her parents in America. Susan is viewed and the smartest and most level-headed of the Pevensie children, but in an offhand (and possibly bitter) comment Edmund says that their parents took Susan with them to America since her grades have been dropping. So connecting the dots this made her pretty upset, she probably became distracted and didn't really care anymore.

In The Last Battle, the Friends of Narnia, are explaining why Susan isn't. Susan was lost in this "perfect" teenage life, with lipstick, nylons, and parties, and she wanted to stay there forever, not growing up. The author, C.S. Lewis, looked down on material items, part due to rationing, and part due to his personal beliefs. But he also said that in the end, Susan Pevensie reached Aslan's Country, and even encouraged fan fiction.

/Part 4 Conclusion/:

So, what makes Susan's story so great? It shows that heroes don't always stay heroic. They can fall, they make mistakes. It also shows that belief isn't the same for everyone, Lucy would never doubt it, but Susan has a long and hard path to true belief.

Thank you for reading my long rant!


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